Dispatches from January 356th
Using the Dual Process Model to survive this messed-up moment
It was 3 a.m., and my eight-year-old was standing beside my bed. “Mommy, I had a bad dream,” he whispered, his voice shaking. In it, I was searching for him and couldn’t find him anywhere. He was lost forever.
I’d already been awake. My body was on high alert, my mind ricocheting through an interminable month’s trap doors: names I can’t shake—Liam, Renee, Alex; shootings; rights that no longer feel so inalienable; children hurt, taken, contained; we’re going to “run” Venezuela?; friends scrambling to research moves abroad. Plus basketball schedules. A no-school snow day colliding with a work Zoom I can’t screw up. Almond milk running low. Remember to Venmo the sitter.
January threatened to obliterate our sanity. Frankly, I started to doubt it would ever end. We weren’t built to metabolize this level of absorption all at once. It’s taken me three days to coherently write this short newsletter.
I pulled my little boy close, slowed my breath, and did what parents do: I told him he was safe. “Do you promise?” I promised. And then I promised I’d never lose him. In short, I lied. As anyone who lives with grief knows, certainty is the first thing these times take from us.
I didn’t have certainty to offer myself, but I did have a framework. Lately I’ve been returning to a grief theory called the Dual Process Model. My beloved social worker shared it to help me make sense of the constant back-and-forth after my mom’s death between falling apart and functioning. This theory was presented in the 1990s by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut to challenge the idea that “healthy grieving” means doing one thing in one linear way.
January threatened to obliterate our sanity. I even started to doubt that the month would actually ever end. We were not built to metabolize this level of absorption all at once.
The model describes two necessary ways we cope in the face of loss: loss-oriented, where we sit with the pain, fear, and heartbreak; and restorative, where we take breaks from all that and turn toward life—structure, adjusting, action, even distraction.
The key isn’t choosing one over the other. It’s oscillating between them. That back-and-forth isn’t a setback or a sign of instability. It’s a normal, adaptive rhythm of adjusting to loss. Both count.
I’m not a therapist, and for all I know Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut would bristle at how I’m applying their model to moments of collective grief and overwhelm. Still, the framework has been useful to me here, particularly in the last month.
Further down are some specific ways people are caring for themselves right now, oscillating between sitting with loss (which, in my personal, non-clinical interpretation, can include staying connected, channeling care into advocacy, or finding ways to feel useful) and restoration (which might look like temporarily dissociating with Heated Rivalry or throwing a solo dance party to the top hits of 1989—the year, not the album). Here are some of mine:
Loss-oriented
- Calling my representatives once a day, every day
- Supporting small and immigrant-run businesses
- Trying my damndest to explain things to my kids without scaring them
- Donating to the Committee to Protect Journalists
- Developing a quick, daily text check-in routine with friends with zero expectation of a comprehensive reply
- Letting myself actually read the hard stories instead of skimming past them*
- Naming out loud when I feel scared, angry, or deeply unsettled without immediately trying to fix it
Restoration-oriented
- Being outdoors, preferably with any sort of movement
- Researching bucket-list trips
- Comfort food (try Dan Pelosi’s pastina recipe)
- Group outing to Yacht Rock Revue (there’s very little a good Kenny Loggins cover can’t make at least slightly better)
- Puppy yoga class (featured puppy: Dachshunds)
- *Immediately stopping reading any stories when need be
- Introducing my kids to the Mel Brooks canon, to ravenous reception: Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and History of the World: Part I. Turning the Inquisition and Hitler on Ice scenes into a lesson on how making fun of something scary can defang it, at least a little? Best thing ever.
What are you doing out there? I’d love to know.
A moment of recognition
Last month I received a Women to Watch award from Jewish Women International, a leading nonprofit championing women and girls globally by fighting and preventing gender-based violence and sexual abuse, addressing the intersection of domestic violence and gun violence, and building pathways to long-term economic security. My fellow honorees were some of the most wildly impressive women I’ve met, including First Women’s Bank cofounder Melissa Widen and Punchbowl News cofounder Rachel Schindler.
The conference unfolded during a brutal 48 hours, between the Brown University and Bondi Beach shootings—events that directly touched many women in the room. I don’t live in an awards ecosystem; most days my work feels like chop wood, carry water, send words into the void and hope they land somewhere. So this recognition reminded me that making space for grief, loss, and mental health, and insisting those conversations matter, is not invisible work.
💸 To that end, if you work with a nonprofit supporting highly vulnerable women and girls, consider applying for the 2026 L’Oréal Fund for Women. It’s a well-resourced global fund backing education, safety, and long-term stability. Many of you do this work, and this is real support. If you apply, I’d love to hear how it goes.
Oh Catherine! Our Catherine!
Catherine O’Hara’s roles weren’t just a throughline in my life; they were a lifeline. Delia Deetz, Kate McAllister, Moira Rose, Cookie Fleck. Just last week I’d watched her stunning eulogy for I Like Me, the documentary about John Candy, and thought, well, thank god she’s still around. Suddenly, she’s not, and it feels awful, doesn’t it?
Here she is with Eugene Levy, as Mitch and Mickey from A Mighty Wind, performing “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.”
My sweet, my dear, my darling, you're so far away from me
Though an ocean of tears divides us
Let the bridge of our love span the sea
Real Ways People Are Coping Right Now
From Modern Loss readers and a handful of trusted friends. I hope a few are useful when things feel especially hard.
